


Freckle Stars & Scorched Wings

by potterswinchesters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bottom Dean, Castiel Loves Humanity, Castiel Saves Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester Poetry, Dead Sam Winchester, Depressed Dean Winchester, Depression, Drunk Dean Winchester, Emotionally Repressed Dean Winchester, Fallen Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Guardian Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jessica Moore & Dean Winchester Friendship, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Dean Winchester, Past Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Slow Build Castiel/Dean Winchester, Slow Burn, Switch Castiel, Switch Dean, Top Castiel, adorable awkwardness which leads to some hot cry porn, lowkey morbid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:28:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 10,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14466033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potterswinchesters/pseuds/potterswinchesters
Summary: Once there was a man who didn’t believe in Heaven; so he met an angel who believed in him first.After the death of his younger brother Sam, Dean Winchester loses everything. As the last sliver of faith leaves him, Dean plunges into a sea of despair... until one day, in a haze of whiskey-induced delirium, he comes across a feather, burning on wet gravel, and beside it a hurricane-haired angel with scorched wings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you've read the tags, you'll know that this is going to be a heavy read. There'll be a lot of pain on Dean's side because of Sam's death, but there's time for his road to recovery.
> 
> The language itself is pretty poetic, but the chapters will also be interspersed with poems. (Though the first chapter is short, the others will be much longer.)
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Please leave kudos and drop some comments if you do.

Once, there was a man who was afraid of flying.

Every bit of skin on his bones was covered in freckles that formed constellations if anyone dared to connect them. The man had the sky between his shoulder blades, mapped out on his back—and there was a galaxy of green swirling in his eyes. Still, he was afraid to fly.

He didn’t believe in Heaven, either. He uttered the name of God carelessly, for it carried no meaning to him. He did not wear a crucifix, nor did he have one hanging from the rear view mirror in his car. And he felt no divine presence when gazing up at the stained glass inside a church, even when sunlight passed through it and dashed everything in a mosaic of colour.

The last time he had prayed was when his dying baby brother had asked him to. _“For me,”_ he had said, choking on his last few breaths. _“Believe in God, just this once, for me.”_ And the man had tried his best—oh, had he tried. He had gotten on his knees, kneeling before the sky he was so afraid of touching, and begged and begged. When his brother slipped away anyway, his pleas turned to agonized screams even though he knew there was no point. That no one was listening.

Nevertheless, he screamed himself raw until he was spitting blood and crying blood and vomiting _blood_. (He was supposed to have been his brother’s protector. His foolish brother, who had prayed every goddamn night on blind faith and just _look_ how that had turned out.)

That night, he walked into a bar and rinsed his insides out with whiskey. His voice didn’t return for a week, but he didn’t need it anyway. He had used it all up on a God that didn’t care, on angels that weren’t listening, on a higher power that didn’t exist. What use was a prayer, and the ability to pray, if there was nothing but Hell?

Because Hell _did_ exist, except it didn’t come in the form of demons and fire pits and Lucifer, the fallen angel who had created it all. It came in the form of humanity and hospitals and dying little brothers.

And loneliness and hangovers and the smell of funeral homes.

And empty bottles and broken glass and bleeding knuckles.

And nausea and oases of whiskey vomit and stumbling over air.

And mindless sex and the taste of fire and...

And—

And accidentally stepping on a singed feather.


	2. Chapter 2

Outside, it smelled like rain. _Petrichor._ That was what it was called. Dean only knew because Sam had always liked to tell him shit that no one else knew and that he’d thought was meaningful.

He didn’t remember how it had come up. All he knew was that that day, he and Sam had been sitting on the couch at Sam and Jessica’s apartment. Jess had been out getting fast food and a six pack of beer for the three of them. Sam had been studying, a textbook and two notebooks laid out on the coffee table, his large Bernese Mountain Dog, Moose, curled into his side. Dean had been there just for the sake of disturbing his brother’s study session, because that was what big brothers did.

“You know the way the ground smells after it rains?” Dean had said, squinting out the window. That day had been a rainy one too. “I hate that damn smell.”

“You mean petrichor,” Sam had responded without looking up from his textbook, flipping to the next page.

Dean had scrunched his nose up. “What the fuck is a petrichor?”

“Dude, you literally just described it yourself.”

“Okay, but why do you know that? Who even knows that word? Friggin’ weirdo.” But Dean had smiled anyway.

Of course, the word itself didn’t matter to Dean. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything that mattered anymore. It didn’t matter what the weather was like, or how few meals he had eaten in the past week, or what the name of the last woman he’d hooked up with was. It didn’t matter if the world was about to end (and if it was, good riddance to the wretched universe).

The gravel beneath Dean’s feet was still wet, but the clouds had parted so that the white light of the moon was reflected in the puddles. Dean’s intoxication distorted the stars; they twirled and spun until a wave of nausea crashed over him, forcing him to turn his gaze back to the ground. When he licked his cracked lips, he tasted blood. A crooked smile found its way on his face, and he was too drunk to know why he was smiling, because everything was wrong and his little brother was dead and _rotting in the fucking ground—_

Dean leaned over and wretched all over the gravel. The image of Sam’s body rotting among the worms had found its way into his mind, and he couldn’t handle it.

Tonight, he had entered the bar and gotten blind drunk until he couldn’t feel anymore. He did this almost every night. It was the best way he could think of to numb the pain while simultaneously torturing himself, because he liked the airy feeling alcohol gave him initially, but he hated the dry heaving, dizziness and pounding headaches that followed soon after.

He stumbled forward a few more steps until something on the ground caught his eye.

It was a feather, too large to belong to any bird he had ever seen; but that wasn’t the most absurd part, for it was right in the middle of a puddle, drenched, but still _burning_.

Dean squinted at it through red-rimmed eyes and nearly stooped down to touch it—to allow the flame to lap at his fingers—before realizing that he must have been dreaming. He was probably back inside the bar, passed out on the floor. Or maybe he was dead already. He couldn’t care less.

But something—he didn’t know what, but _something_ , some inane curiosity—made him drag his gaze just a few feet further, past the burning feather. His eyes were met with a broken male figure, sprawled across the gravel. The figure was still and unmoving, except for a small twitch of a pair of…

A pair of large, charred black wings.

The gravel swayed beneath Dean’s feet. His legs finally gave out, and he fell to the ground, ripping his jeans and grazing his knees on the way down. Though he was completely numb everywhere, he somehow still felt the sting of his scraped knees. He scrambled to his feet; he wasn’t asleep. He wasn’t dreaming. He was _hallucinating_.

When he looked up again, he expected to see nothing but parked cars and street lights, but the figure with wings was still there. For a moment, Dean wondered how drunk he really was, or if there was something extra in one of his drinks that was causing his aching head to conjure up such vivid hallucinations.

He wondered if he should help it up, but found himself rooted firmly in place. So he simply continued to watch the figure.

After a moment, it rose to its feet. With the wings no longer obstructing Dean’s view of the figure, he saw that he was naked. If he were sober, he would’ve squared his jaw and walked the other way, but he was drunk, and depressed, and the man wasn’t _real_ anyway. Dean was so mesmerized that he _couldn’t look away_.

There was no one else around but the figure and Dean. No one else saw the scorched wings extend. No one else saw the jet black hair, mussed as though it had been caressed by a hurricane. And no one else saw the pair of brilliant blue eyes that settled on Dean.

Their eyes locked for an eternity. For a long moment, they were the only thing that Dean could see. He was now convinced that the sky was black because those eyes had stolen all of the blue from it. He felt like they were ripping into him, stripping the skin from his bones, reaching right down to his ravaged soul. There was something indescribable and remarkable about that blue-eyed, thousand-yard stare…

The thing before him was not an angel. He knew it couldn’t be an angel, but goddammit—it looked just like what Dean would imagine a fallen angel to look like.

He licked his vomit-glazed lips and tore his eyes away, shaking his head. Once was dizzy enough that he saw stars embedded in the gravel, he couldn’t help but look back one last time.

Finally, the figure was gone.

That night, he dreamed he and his brother were walking on rooftops, which was strange because alcoholics rarely had dreams. In this horrible phantasmagoria, his heart faltered every time they jumped from roof to roof, and stopped altogether when Sam teetered dangerously close to or dipped his foot over the edge. _“Sammy, stay away from the edge. I can’t save you if you fall, Sammy. Sammy, please, I don’t have wings,”_ he was telling his brother in the dream. Sam was a man himself, but Dean was still forced to watch him slip and plummet to the ground as if he was nothing but a child forgotten by the angels.

He awakened in the backseat of his rundown car, tear tracks running down his cheeks, eyelids glued shut.


	3. Chapter 3

Nearly every person who frequented the bar on a regular basis had come to recognize Dean, simply due to the fact that he was there so often. And whenever he was, he happened to be either floating or drowning. Sometimes, he went home with a woman he had just met and pressed his lips into her thighs to distract himself from the agony. It gave him the illusion that he wasn’t lonely at all.

But it was only ever that: an illusion.

Dean was _drowning_ when he saw the figure again—the one with the burning wings. Ever since the last person who had cared about his well-being had died, Dean drowned at least twice a day, so it was likely a coincidence that the figure showed up again while the ocean current was beating against him, filling his lungs with burning salt water. He clutched the beer bottle in his hold tighter. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like to shatter a bottle with his bare hands. He wondered if he would feel the shards embedded in his palms at all.

Dean gritted his teeth and glanced at the figure again. He recognized the eyes—the ones with tiny skies trapped within them. The man they belonged to was wearing a bowler hat and a long black coat, and appeared to have walked right out of the nineteenth century. Other than that, he appeared normal; there nothing remarkable about him whatsoever, Dean told himself. His wings, which Dean surmised had been a drunken hallucination, were gone.

The other man’s gaze flickered to Dean for a split second before it moved on; he surveyed the rest of the bar, his features stoic. He then marched over to where Dean was sitting and took the seat directly beside him, a bit too close for his liking.

Dean immediately stiffened and let out a loud scoff. He sniffed and lifted his bottle to his lips, taking in a mouthful of beer. He swirled the liquid in his mouth and welcomed the tang of it; by the time he swallowed and glanced at the other man, the blue eyes were back on him, this time openly staring.

Shifting in discomfort, Dean took another hasty gulp.

When the bartender came around, she leaned over the bar towards the newcomer. Her name was Vanessa, and Dean had hooked up with her once or twice. In a Southern drawl, she said, “Hey, you—Trench Coat. Are you getting a drink or not?”

Trench Coat turned his attention to the bartender. Dean looked over at him, only to curb his curiosity.

“No,” said Trench Coat, a crease forming between his dark eyebrows. His voice was deeper than Dean had expected. “I don’t consume liquids, especially not alcohol. It is forbidden in the garrison for us to indulge in any of the… sinful pleasures that you humans normally do. Although, I sincerely doubt that it would have an affect on me, anyway.”

“Uh—okay, sweetie,” Vanessa replied. “I hope you realize this is a bar. Y’know, where folks buy drinks.”

“I do realize that, yes,” Trench Coat said. “I am only here to watch over the man beside me. His soul is suffering.”

At that, Dean nearly fell out of his chair.

Vanessa frowned and turned to Dean. “You know this guy?” she asked, pointing a thumb in Trench Coat’s direction.

Dean regained his composure and cleared his throat. Without looking at Trench Coat, he responded, “Not a fucking clue.”

The bartender eyed them suspiciously; ever since Dean had stopped flirting with her every time he got a drink, she was uncharacteristically cold around him. Before she turned her back on them, she said to Trench Coat, “Lemme know if you change your mind.”

As she diverted her attention from the pair, Dean turned back to his beer and once again, he felt a stare burning into the side of his face.

Feeling confrontational, he turned to Trench Coat, his green eyes blazing as they met the pair of wide, innocent blue ones. “Is there a reason you can’t take your eyes off of me? I know I’m a wonder to look upon, but I don’t swing that way, man. Try a gay bar.”

He _knew_ how horrible he sounded—Sam would’ve scolded him and told him he was being homophobic—but he couldn’t stop himself. He just didn’t care. Nevertheless, Trench Coat barely seemed fazed, with the exception of minor confusion on his part.

“I do not know what you’re saying,” Trench Coat responded, staring even more intently at Dean. “But I am only staring because your soul is glowing so faintly.”

In response, Dean scrunched his nose up. “Either you’re stoned as fuck or you’re just insane, because that is the _weirdest_ attempt at a pickup line I have ever heard in my entire life. You really need to learn how to flirt, dude. Just not with me.”

“That was not a flirtation,” Trench Coat muttered under his breath, finally seeming mildly irritated. “From my perspective, your soul glows because I am an angel of the lord and your guardian. When we come down to Earth, we are able to distinguish which the humans each of us is meant to protect. Souls are bright, but the specific souls to which an angel is bound… they are brilliant. So brilliant they would not be able to be perceived by a human eye. It is our way of finding you. Your soul used to be the brightest I’d ever seen, even from Heaven—the most pure of intent. But now it has grown faint.”

Dean let out a bout of broken laughter; it sounded cruel and sadistic and forced, even to his own ears. When he spoke, his voice was raspy. “What’re you goin’ on about, huh? So now I’ve got a fuckin’ whacko Christian—who thinks he’s an angel of the lord, no less—tailing my ass. Great! That’s just… _great_.”

Trench Coat squinted and tilted his head at Dean in confusion. When he spoke, his voice remained deep and monotone as ever, without a trace of emotion. “I am not a Christian,” he replied. “Angels do not have religion. Religion was invented by humans, and as angels we are meant to represent _all_ of creation—not humanity alone.” He paused. “Well, I used to be one of them. Before I fell, of course. As of yesterday, I am not quite sure what I am anymore.”

“Oh, you fell, didja? Even better,” Dean jeered, a drunken grin finding its way onto his face. “Well how’re you doing, Satan? Of course I’d be the one to get Satan as my own fucking guardian angel.” Dean finished off the last of his beer, then continued without leaving room for Trench Coat to say a word. “No _wonder_ my life has turned out so peachy. According to you, I’ve got the devil watchin’ out for me. Makes a whole lot of sense now, dunnit?”

He laughed without humour.

“I am not Lucifer,” Trench Coat replied, sounding completely genuine, evidently still unable to tell that Dean had been mocking him. “Lucifer fell eons ago. I fell yesterday. And I have come to save you.”

“To _save_ me?” Dean exclaimed, slamming his empty beer bottle against the bar in a burst of rage. “I don’t need you to save me, and I already told you I don’t swing that way. Get the fuck away from me.”

Only when a few people around them went quiet and stared at them did Dean realize he had made a scene. He glared back at Trench Coat before leaping up and storming out of the bar.

Once outside, Dean stumbled to the parking lot, eyes on his car—

And then suddenly, he was being pressed against the brick wall of the building. Someone lifted him by the shirt just a few inches off the ground, and he struggled against the hold, choking on the fabric of his shirt as it pressed against his throat. Then, his shirt was released; his back, however, remained firmly pressed against the brick wall, and a strong hand on his chest held him in place.

_“Dean Winchester,”_ Trench Coat hissed (and Dean realized there was no possible explanation for how he had reached him so fast), “I will not let you destroy yourself any more than you already have.”

Fear coiled its frigid tendrils around Dean’s heart, making it pound harder, threatening to break out of the bounds that restrained it. “H-how do you know my name?”

No one—not a single person—had so much as uttered his name since Sam had died. He lied to the women he had slept with since then, giving them fake names and fake backstories. But somehow, this man with dishevelled hair—who claimed to be a fallen angel—knew it.

“I already told you,” Trench Coat growled, his face inching closer and closer to Dean’s. Dean could feel the hot breath fanning over his face. He squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling to admit to himself how afraid he was, because the man before him was much too strong to be anything human. “I am your guardian angel; I know everything about you. You saw me right when I fell. You saw my wings burn, but you should know that it was for you. I fell for you.”

Dean cringed and gritted his teeth together. “Don’t say it like that. Just—don’t. That doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

Trench Coat, once again, seemed completely unfazed by what Dean had said. He continued, his tone far from the angelic grace that the soldiers of Heaven were presumed to have. “I fell because you’re lost. God threw me from Heaven because I didn’t want your soul to go to waste. I am the guardian to other humans and I failed to save you, but when I saw you spiralling I was too fixated on you to focus on the others. I couldn’t do my job, so He burned my wings and banished me from Heaven. I will not let this be for nothing. I will not let your soul go to waste after I have fallen to save you.”

Dean bit down on his bottom lip hard—so hard that it probably drew blood. All he knew was that he tasted something metallic on his tongue, but he tasted blood so often he couldn’t tell anymore. “So you’re an angel, huh?” he challenged, his voice and limbs trembling. “That must mean you’ve got some connections upstairs. So bring my brother back.”

As he demanded it, he knew that it couldn’t be. He knew that there was no way to bring Sammy back. It was too good to be true, and miracles seemed to happen to others, but never to him. Still, he couldn’t help the way his heart jumped to his throat at the mere thought.

The angel lowered his gaze, his grip on Dean loosened and the corners of his mouth pulled downwards almost imperceptibly. “I cannot do that. I’m sorry.”

Dean swallowed and turned away and tried not to cry again.

“Hm. Some guardian angel you are.” And then his tone turned accusatory as he finally shoved the angel’s hand off of his chest and yelled menacingly in his face, “Why don’t you tell me something, angel—if guardian angels really do exist, then where was my brother’s?”

“You must understand,” Trench Coat said almost pleadingly, his blue eyes all that Dean could see for miles. “We can’t save everyone.”

“Then you must be a bunch of douchebags up there.”

“Destiny—the natural order—”

“Screw the goddamn natural order!”

Dean gave the angel one final shove and managed to walk away from him, his entire body trembling with the force of trying to hold back tears. How _dare_ this man come to him, claim he could save him, when the only thing that could possibly save him could not be done—

“My name is Castiel,” the angel called after him, “and I will not give up on you, Dean Winchester.”


	4. Chapter 4

A pair of stardust wings burning,  
Beating against the wind,  
Breaking the night sky;  
I fall, I fall, I fall,  
Until I taste gravel, and see you,  
Soul dimly lighting up the dark.  
Your soul used to gleam so bright  
That it was like the sun had  
Touched down on Earth.  
But now, it is nothing but  
A hollowed-out wandering star,  
Lost in the motions humanity—  
Oh grieving,  
Alcohol-drinking,  
Green-eyed  
 _Humanity._  
You see, I’d rearrange  
The wretched constellations,  
Those Heavenly masterpieces,  
If it meant they would match  
The freckles on your back.  
You are a pinprick in comparison  
To these celestial bodies,  
And yet your soul  
Was once brighter than any of them.  
There is a benediction on the tip  
Of your burnt tongue.  
Pray.  
Ask me to show you the way,  
To repair your split seams,  
To turn your scars into armour.  
We can chase the dawn forever,  
Together—  
And bid the dusk goodbye.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to let you know, the chapters are purposely short at the beginning of the story. They’re meant to reflect Dean’s grief and his pain; you get to see choppy glimpses of his suffering before getting the full story of what he’s going through when he interacts with Castiel. As he gets to know Cas better and begins his healing, the chapters will get longer.

Dean thought he saw him sometimes— _Castiel_. The man who thought he was an angel. He swore he caught brief glimpses of the same bowler hat and trench coat that he had seen that day, back at the bar.

Sometimes, he even thought he saw the blue eyes.

When he did, the bright orbs simply stared, and he stared right back into them, despite everything—and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he is so fascinated by those eyes. Then again, a convergence of the sky and the sea was quite a sight. But it might not have been entirely the colour of the other man’s irises that made him unable to look away. It might have been because there was something distinctly inhumane, or maybe superhuman, about them.

He _always_ turned away first before screwing his eyes shut. By the time he opened them and looked back, Castiel was always gone. It was always as if he had vanished into thin air; but the shuddering chills that his gaze had sent down Dean’s spine moments ago lingered. And Dean was painfully certain that the wind picked up the instant Castiel disappeared, as though it was carrying him away.

Or…

Maybe…

As if Castiel was carrying the wind _with_ him.

Despite these encounters that Dean could later pretend did not even happen, he attempted as hard as possible not to think of Castiel. It worked at first, only because the changes were so subtle in their impact that Dean failed to notice them.

It occurred to him that Castiel was a figment of his imagination, and that he was the one slipping into a lunacy of his own. His mind lingered for a second too long on the idea that insanity had taken him into its clutches and was mercilessly beating against his skull. He was lost.

But he remembered that the day he first thought he had caught a glimpse of burning wings, he had fallen to the ground in his drunken stupor, ripping his jeans and scraping his knees. Afterwards, he had walked around with scabbed knees like a schoolboy who’d fallen at recess until one morning, he woke up to find them gone.

The tears in his jeans were fixed, too, with not a single trace that they had ripped in the first place. They were repaired. Mended. Seamlessly.

When Dean stared into the mirror and _hated_ with a burning passion the man that matched his gaze—green eyes sunken, full lips chapped and bloody, freckles standing out like hundreds of blemishes to remind him how infinitely far from _good enough_ he was—he flung at it the first thing that he could get his hands on, which happened to be a bottle of mouthwash. The mirror shattered magnificently, showering him in broken pieces of himself. Dean dared and taunted the seven years of misfortune that he faced to come after him, because he was already in Hell anyway.

But they never come, for when he returned to clean the mess he had made—fully intending to slowly savour the sharpness of each one by picking up the pieces with his bare hands and pressing them into his palms until blood was drawn—the bottle of mouthwash laid undisturbed beside the sink, and the mirror itself was intact.

Seeing it elicited a strangled noise from the back of his throat: an almost-sob.

He didn’t feel afraid.

Because something was trying its damnedest to drive him out of his delirium, bit by bit.


	6. Chapter 6

Dear agony that consumes me,  
And coils around my heart,  
And turns it into something that  
Is easily broken apart:  
You flood intoxicated nightmares  
Right into my veins,  
You are the acid that seeps  
Into the cracks in my skin  
Every time it rains.

Dear mother who would sing to me  
The sweetest lullabies,  
Even as your husband tore  
The hope right from your eyes:  
Don’t look at what I have become.  
I am nothing like the melodies  
That you used to exhaust.  
But hand me a shovel  
And a bottle of whiskey  
And I’ll dig up your goddamn grave  
And throw myself into the coffin  
To be with you  
Forevermore.

Dear father who, once upon a time,  
Crushed me underfoot,  
Leaving me damaged and corroded:  
I drown often,  
But I must give credit where credit is due,  
Because the very first to ever drown me  
Was you.


	7. Chapter 7

The next time Castiel came to Dean, it was when the world was lopsided.

Dean was intoxicated beyond belief, and this time, most of it wasn’t even from grief—most of it was, in fact, because he _hated hated hated_ how, whenever they came across one another, his gaze involuntarily trailed over the angel in ways that felt far too intimate. It reminded him of how back in high school, he had stared half a second too long at the other boys in the locker room, unable to place what was causing the first traces of arousal to pool in his gut. It reminded him of how once, when he was really drunk, another man had flirted with him, and he would’ve gone _home_ with him if Jessica hadn’t been beside Dean to deny the proposition for him. “Oh, honey,” Jess had told him later, letting him lean on her. “When the straightest guy you know doesn’t turn down a man immediately, it’s a sign he’s _really_ drunk. Let’s get you home so you can sleep it off.”

It wasn’t even entirely about the angel, though something about the awkward innocence of him, the muss of his hurricane hair and the way that he stared as if he was deciphering an enigma stirred up something in Dean—something he had buried away countless times. It was precisely the type of thing his father would’ve beaten him for, if he had known about the secret longings that Dean kept locked away.

At the very least, the throes of desire were easy to ignore since he had a preference for women most of the time.

Still, denial had built a fortress in his bones and sometimes, something would come along and break it down.

As he drank his apartment’s liquor cabinet dry, he felt and felt until he couldn’t feel anymore, and then until he felt _too much_ —the numbness always came crashing down on him. He stumbled to the bathroom and by some miracle, he made it to the toilet before his stomach was emptying into it. The smell alone was enough to make him retch even more, because it alcohol and stomach acid was a miasmic mixture.

He hadn’t even eaten. There was nothing in his stomach to empty except for the cheap stuff he had practically inhaled (he lived off of the money that he had already saved up to put Sam through medical school, and he couldn’t bring himself to use it for anything that might make him happy; he bought only cheap alcohol).

Just when Dean could barely hold his head up and leaned his forehead against the toilet seat, tears spilling over, he felt wind at his back.

And then someone was kneeling next to him, and he flinched away from the heavy hand that came to rest on his shoulder.

He wanted to stop talking—wanted to stop the words that spilled from his stinging lips and rolled off his burning tongue—but he couldn’t. Over and over, he chanted the same words. “No dad, I’m sorry. ’M sorry dad. Sorry dad. Won’t do it again. No. ’M sorry. Please don’t—I won’t do it again, I promise, I promise.”

Broad shoulders shaking, he was afraid to turn around. Afraid to see the disappointment in his father’s eyes, burning away affection and leaving only the smouldering embers of red-hot rage.

Then he heard his name being spoken, but it was gentler than his father had ever said it.

Sobs racked his body as he thought of the only person who could ever talk to him like that, and he cried, “Don’t leave me Sammy.” He chanted the words a few more times, his ballad of inebriated desolation echoing across the walls.

“Dean,” the voice said again, and then a hand reached up to touch his wet cheek, turning his head until he was looking into the face of Castiel.

“Where’s Sammy?” Dean garbled, eyes lidded heavily. “ _Where’s Sammy?_ Dad’s gonna hurt ’im.”

“I’m not your brother, Dean,” said the angel tenderly, carefully, as though he was bearing news of the world’s end.

Dean was silent for a moment. He himself wasn’t sure what he was about to say until he had already said it. “Friggin’ angel. Friggin’ blue eyes.” His hand reached out and he was touching the angel’s confused face—and he believed, he _believed_. He wanted to retract his hand, but instead clutched clumsily onto the front of the trench coat. Pulling Castiel towards him, he slurred into his ear, despondency seeping its way into his tone, “You here to save me, Cas?”

“I am. But—my name is Castiel.”

“’S too long. Cas is better. Cas Cas Cas,” Dean mumbled. “Broke myself—fix me Cas. Said you’d save me.”

“Don’t worry, Dean Winchester. I am going to help you.”

Dean felt himself being lifted into the angel’s arms the way a groom carried a bride, and the thought made him sick all over again. His head lolled back and he gagged, but then he was being settled onto something itchy and uncomfortable—the blanket that covered his stiff mattress.

He stirred, tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position but failing miserably. Soon, Castiel moved to stand over him, the bowler hat tipped forward slightly. Dean swallowed hard. Having no inhibitions whatsoever, he lifted his hand again, as though he meant to touch the angel’s face once more. Before he could, Castiel caught his wrist and fixed him with a hard, knee-weakening stare.

Dean couldn’t hold himself back as he ripped his wrist from the angel’s grasp. “Why you gotta… gotta look at me with those… stupid… eyes? Huh? ’M not… Stop fuckin’ _lookin’_ at me!”

The angel apologized quietly before saying, eyes now downcast, “I can take some of your pain. Rest now, Dean. When you wake, I can assure you will feel better.”

While Dean’s eyebrows pulled together in bewilderment, Castiel touched the tips of his fingers to the drunk man’s forehead.

Drawing away the hangover.

Drawing away the pain.

Drawing away everything that ever kept him awake.


	8. Chapter 8

There was something missing (the heaviness weighing on his eyelids, the handicapping headache that ravaged his mind on most mornings—whatever it may have been) in Dean when he awoke to find himself fully-clothed and sprawled awkwardly over his bed with almost no recollection of how he had gotten there. He felt more rested than he had in his entire life, which was why, when his eyelids fluttered open and he found that a man is in his room watching him, his reflexes were rapid. Without a second thought, he grabbed the alarm clock from the nightstand and hurled it at him.

He only realized his mistake after the clock hit the man’s head with a hollow clunk and fell to the floor. Breathing hard, he fixed his gaze on Castiel, who appeared rather unfazed and looked down at the fallen clock with disinterest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dean demanded, a horrified expression pulling at his freckled face. He vaguely remembered getting drunk and the angel appearing, but the fact that he couldn’t remember the words that had been exchanged made him very uneasy. “Have you been standing there all night?”

“Yes,” the angel responded, still as a statue.

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Yes? That’s all you have to say? Well what the fuck have you been doing this whole time, then?”

“I’ve been watching over you,” Castiel responded, the hard planes of his face softening. Beneath the bowler hat, his dark hair peeked out and gave him an inexplicable sort of youthful innocence.

But that was impossible, because Castiel _wasn’t_ young. He was a powerful celestial being; a soldier billions of years old.

Dean stared hard at the angel, sighing heavily to himself. “Look man, I know they didn’t teach social skills to you at angel Sunday school, but with us humans, it’s considered creepy to watch someone sleep,” he growled harshly.

Gnawing on his bottom lip, he scratched the back of his neck. However, Castiel’s response to what he had said was merely to tilt his head and stare. Irritation bloomed in Dean’s chest like a field of dandelions and in a split second, he was on his feet. With the hat the angel wore adding an inch or two, they were just about the same height. “What are you even doing here, anyway?” Dean demanded. “Get out of my apartment, you stupid son of a bitch.”

Castiel took a step forward. “I don’t understand,” the angel said, his eyebrows knitting together. “My father is not a female dog…”

“Oh hell. It’s like I’m speakin’ a different language here.”

“I know every language on Earth, Dean, as all angels instinctively do,” the angel said matter-of-factly.

“Well, then, I guess you just have absolutely no grasp of basic human interaction,” he huffed in exasperation.

Shuffling his feet in sudden discomfort, he attempted to look anywhere but the angel, who was now standing much too close to him. He looked around the walls of his room, which were bare and white. The floor was littered with weeks’ worth of dirty laundry that he hadn’t bothered to wash (or at least put in the hamper), and on the nightstand, there was a framed photograph of himself and Sammy when they were children, wrapped up in their mother’s arms. Other than this single picture, the room was generic—it could have belonged to anyone.

“Wanna know somethin’ else that’s important when it comes to us humans?” Dean asked, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips. “Personal space. You’re standing way too close to me right now. Take a step back, angel.”

“Are you certain?” Castiel asked him. “This distance seems completely acceptable to me based on my experience with humans.”

Dean tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Uh… what? What experience?”

“At the bar you attend frequently, I noticed a man and a woman standing very close together. In fact, they were standing even closer than this and did not seem at all bothered by the proximity,” Castiel reasoned.

By now, Dean was urging himself not to blush. He could easily have just taken the step back _himself_ , but he felt as though he was rooted to the ground. “Yes, that’s—that’s not… Okay, it’s like this: standing this close together is reserved for very special people. You don’t do it with just anyone. Usually, that’s what you do when you’re attracted to someone. It’s like showing affection. You get it?”

The angel frowned and took a step back. “I think so,” he muttered.

Dean breathed a sigh of relief.

“So standing in close proximity of one another is… a form of human mating call?”

Dean let out a dry laugh. “Uh… sure, Cas. Call it what you want.”

“Castiel,” the angel replied.

“Hm?” Dean hummed, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rolling on the balls of his feet. “What?”

“My name,” he stated. “It’s Castiel.”

“Well good for you,” Dean said. He turned and walked over to his closet, his shoulders slumping. A pensive expression crossed his face, reaching his verdant eyes. “But tough luck, ’cause I don’t care, and I’m givin’ you a nickname. You got a problem with that, _Cas_?”

“I thought you were calling me that last night because your intoxication had caused you to forget my name. Nicknames,” Castiel said, testing the word out on his tongue. “Are they another human concept?”

Dean opened his closet door and grabbed a towel folded over a hanger. He was sweaty and his body was aching for a shower after the events of the previous evening. His mind wandered to the broken bottles in the kitchen and he shut his eyes momentarily, as though doing so could scrub the floor clean of alcohol and broken glass. “Yeah, Cas. Yeah, they are.” He whirled around to face the angel, towel in hand. “I’m sure you’ll be back since you’ve been having a great time stalking me, but I’ve got to shower, so…”

“Yes, right,” said Castiel, but he remained rooted to the spot.

Dean surveyed at the angel expectantly, looking him up and down. He cleared his throat loudly. “Are you planning on poofing out of here anytime soon, or are you gonna watch me shower too?”

The blue eyes squinted for the umpteenth time that morning. “By the expression on your face, I am going to assume the correct answer is ‘no’,” Castiel retorted, and then there was a gust of wind and he was gone, and all that remained was the overturned alarm clock where his feet had just been planted.

Dean did a double take.

Once he recovered a moment later, he strode out the bedroom door and to the bathroom, dragging a hand over his face, unevenly-broken nails catching on his skin.


	9. Chapter 9

There was much that Castiel had experienced, but never like this. Never in this way—the human way. Before he had fallen, he had never walked the Earth in a human form as he now did. He had always sifted through the wind, a mere wavelength of a celestial being. His true form once shone brightly in Heaven as he watched over the humans from the stars, their souls travelling in clusters. He particularly enjoyed watching new souls form and appear every time a child was born, but that was the extent of the pleasure Castiel had experienced. He had known he wasn’t happy—he wasn’t even really _content_ , but those emotions were for humans and humans alone.

In Heaven, there was an order to everything. When his brothers and sisters struck down Lucifer’s children, the skies would plunge into darkness and lightning would strike and quake the ground. On the days that everything was on track, there would be balance. Sometimes, God would command the angels to perform miracles, but that only happened when destiny was threatened, and when the human in question was someone who’d make the stars spin with the magnitude of their impact.

Castiel had saved many people in the past few millennia. He had prevented an execution of an innocent woman accused of being a witch during the Middle Ages. He had been there during the outbreaks of yellow fever, Black Death and polio. He had saved a seven-year-old girl from her untimely death from a malignant brain tumour that, he was told, would have killed her six months later. He had rescued countless starving children in Liberia, Burundi and Eritrea. He had also been assigned the Vietnam War, during which he had healed many soldiers who’d simply assumed the angel was one of their dehydration-induced battlefield hallucinations. He had been there to save people from the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina. He had cured two male lovers of AIDS in 1980, stopped a teenage boy from overdosing on cocaine in 1994 and held a man back from raping a woman in 2008.

Saving Dean Winchester had never been one of Castiel’s commands.

He had millions of humans under his wings; millions to guide and save, but only if God commanded it. He was not supposed to pick a favourite, but it had happened one way or another. It was bound to.

There was one soul, Castiel had noticed, that was brighter than the rest, and Castiel somehow became infatuated with this one soul in particular. At first, he knew that the man this soul belonged to was one of those rare humans that could make the stars spin. But he _had_ to know about him.

One day, he couldn’t help himself and drifted down to Earth, seeking the knowledge of what made this man’s soul so bright. And he learned many things, watching him from the shadows. It was all very complex; this man was no different from any others on the outside.

He was easy on the eyes and made jokes at inappropriate times. He loved food and alcohol and sex. He talked a little too much but actually _said_ a little too little. And when he was around others, he never failed to laugh the loudest.

But most surprisingly of all, he was not a devout man—in fact, he was completely and utterly faithless. He didn’t believe in God or Heaven. He didn’t even believe that there was anyone watching over him, which made Castiel want to reveal himself and scream, _I am right here, Dean, if you could only see beyond the veil._

And yet…

Somehow…

Dean’s soul gave it all away.

Even as he engaged in iniquitous behaviour, his soul was purer than anything Castiel had ever laid his angelic gaze upon. Slowly, he figured out why.

This man was tender beneath the roughness of his voice and knuckles. He looked at his younger brother like he was his entire world. He was selfless and he fell in love quickly, even though Castiel knew that had only happened twice or so in Dean’s entire lifetime. When Dean loved, he did so with everything he had.

Castiel often found solace in watching the radiant-souled man carrying out the most mundane tasks. Even from Heaven, where Castiel had more important duties to attend to, he watched the pinprick of light from Dean’s soul, always ensuring it was within his reach.

That was why Castiel was the first to notice when, all of a sudden, the soul dimmed—almost completely snuffed out, but not quite. His first thought was that Dean Winchester had died. (Perhaps he’d visit Dean’s Heaven and attempt to find out where the scars on his back had come from. He’d been curious about them, but had never delved into the past to find their source, which had felt like an invasion of privacy.) Alas, death was not the answer. Dean Winchester was alive, but his soul…

His soul was barely hanging on.

At the time, the angel did not understand.

He did not understand how a soul could die before a body. (The only times he knew of such a thing happening were when a human sold their soul to one of Lucifer’s demons.)

Then he discovered Sam Winchester’s death, and he knew what was causing Dean’s pain. Except that Sam hadn’t been under his protection, for Sam’s guardian angel was Michael, who hadn’t been ordered to save him.

But Castiel did not understand that Dean’s love had broken him, even after learning the source, because he had never experienced this destructive kind of love.

And he did not understand why this soul was calling to him, why he longed to save Dean, why he—a powerful celestial being—had built a home within the bones of one small man.

But he didn’t have time to question himself. He knew then that none of the other humans he had been assigned to protect—not a single one out of millions—would ever be as important to him as Dean Winchester was.

So he plummeted.

The skies thundered in protest, but he fell anyway. And his wings began to burn.

Now, as Castiel waited on a curb not far from Dean’s apartment, he was not plagued with a single ounce of regret, even as he remembered the perfection of Heaven and the protestations of the universe and the other angels. He remembered hearing their whispers of _How could he fall for just one human?_ The memory didn’t even faze him anymore, because he knew there was something violently wrong with Dean. He was a man who needed to be rescued. No matter what, Castiel vowed to restore the soul to its resplendence, for this world needed as many of resplendent souls as it could get.

 _Is it too prideful to assume I can be the one to save him?_ Castiel wondered, but he shook the thought from his mind and tried to conjure up a daydream—of course, he could dream now. The humanity of it all filled him with hope. (He mostly hoped that Dean could show him what humans found so fascinating about… sinning…)

Unused to the sensation of discomfort, Castiel shuffled his feet but remained standing on the curb, waiting for Dean as he was not sure how long a shower was supposed to take. He wasn’t sure what he’d do with Dean later, either, but he entertained the idea of asking Dean to show him more human things, like the taste of whatever cheeseburgers were, or the way the vibrations of music could supposedly be felt through one’s bones. Perhaps that might provide Dean with a distraction and lead him down his road to recovery.

The wind jostled Castiel’s hair and he shivered slightly, even though he was an angel and wasn’t supposed to get cold at all.

Now, on Earth, in a human form for the first time, Castiel was experiencing everything new, almost as if he had never been alive before. He had watched God weave blankets of stars, but never once had he sat on the hood of a rundown car (another one of man’s messy creations) and drunk them in. He had never seen the way the colour of humans’ eyes could change under the light of the sun, and tasted the wind on his tongue, and touched and touched and _touched_. He longed to feel textures beneath his fingertips. He longed to feel the sting of cold air on his cheeks, the heat of the sun bearing down on the top of his head, the pain of a sliced palm (no matter how silly that may have seemed). He longed to touch and to be touched, even though he didn’t know when or how.

Watching humans—not just their souls, but their _behaviours_ —was new and exhilarating to Castiel. It was something that, he thought, could never get old. He understood now. While angels cast each other out from Heaven for demonstrating even the smallest sign of chaos, humanity was rampant with it. Human emotions were chaos. Free will was chaos. Love was chaos.

Angels were not meant to love and to hate and to choose their own destinies, but Castiel had never longed to do all of those things as much as he did now.

 _This is madness, this pitiful thing called humanity. But,_ Castiel thought (and he swore he could feel the very human heart in his chest swell with a feeling he had not yet put a name to), _this is where I’ll remain._


	10. Chapter 10

_Humanity._

His eyes,  
Alight with pure, ferocious, violent love,  
Are each seas of liquid emerald  
Dripping tears of molten gold.  
They are the windows to something  
Much more brilliant.  
Even when they’re bloodshot  
And all hope has seeped out of them,  
The lustre of the righteous soul  
Beneath the surface  
Is what cannot evanesce.

His skin,  
Every bit covered with lovely blemishes,  
Is a map of all the world’s wonders—  
A view from above the clouds  
And even past the constellations.  
Each puckered scar that criss-crosses  
Over the blades of his shoulders  
Tells its own tale of destruction—  
A destruction that, in turn,  
Spurs a recovery.  
The freckles stretching across  
Vast expanses—valleys—of flesh  
Are whispers of impermanence;  
The scars that cover them fade,  
The bruises draped over them heal,  
And the blood so thick it conceals them  
May always be washed away.

His heart,  
Fluttering from within a cage of ribs,  
Is a battlefield; utterly tattered and worn  
From eons of losses,  
For it has seen far too many wars  
To have won them all.  
It has been trodden on by God Himself,  
By angels and demons and Fates  
Who have played soldiers and refuse  
To lay down their arms.  
Weeds of despair disguised as flowers  
Bloom from the cavities of his body,  
Weave between his ribs  
And coil around his beating heart—  
He is trapped in Death’s hold,  
But it doesn’t keep his heart from beating on.


	11. Chapter 11

The entire time he was in the shower, Dean felt anxious. He had made sure to lock the door and pulled the shower curtains closed, but he wasn’t sure what to expect from his weird guardian angel—notably, when and _where_ he planned on showing up next. Though the hot water soothed his aching muscles, he couldn’t bring himself to relax. The sensation of unease only worsened when memories from the previous evening clawed their way to the forefront of his mind. He vaguely remembered nonsensical babbling leaving his lips, and shame twined itself around his lungs; he struggled to breathe when he thought of all the possibilities of things that might’ve slipped out. He wasn’t sure what exactly he had said to Castiel, nor what he’d done. In the past, he’d been told he could get handsy—affectionate—when he was really drunk, and he hoped that none of that translated into his interaction with the angel last night.

Once he was finished lathering his body with enough soap to wash away the smell of whiskey bleeding through his pores, he was quick to wrap a towel around his waist. Knowing Castiel, he’d probably see nothing wrong with popping directly into the bathroom while Dean was completely naked, and the last thing Dean needed was having to explain modesty—or better yet, what a dick was—to someone who’d been a celestial wavelength since the beginning of time.

Except that he didn’t show up.

Even when Dean was fully clothed and—for some reason—waiting apprehensively by the front door, reluctant to admit that there was a part of himself that wanted Castiel to appear, he didn’t.

_Maybe he just isn’t coming back today,_ Dean thought to himself. _Maybe you scared him off or something. Why do you even care, anyway? He’s not going to be able to help you, even if he thinks he can._

After a few minutes of pacing around mindlessly, he realized that he was hungrier than he’d been in a long time. He strode over to the fridge and threw it open. His stomach growled as his eyes searched for something edible, but all that was left was an expired carton of cream cheese (and it wasn’t like he had bread to go with it anyway), a stick of butter, a jar of pickles, two sticks of celery (which he didn’t even like) and a few tomatoes that had already begun to grow mold. Back when he’d been content with his life—as content as a lonely man could possibly be—he had enjoyed cooking. Now, the idea nauseated him.

Disappointed, Dean dug his palms into his eyes before closing the fridge.

He moved to the cupboard instead. Inside, he found a bag of chocolate chips and about a dozen different canned soups. He didn’t feel like getting out a pot to warm the soup, so he settled for grabbing a handful of chocolate chips. Just as he was cramming them into his mouth, he felt the familiar current of air and spun around to face the angel behind him.

A piece of chocolate fell out of his mouth as he nearly choked on the rest. While Castiel was casting him a bewildered look, he bent to pick up the chocolate chip and tossed it into the sink. When he looked up, he fixed Castiel with a narrow-eyed stare.

“ _Jesus_ , Cas!” said Dean. “Don’t do that! You almost made me choke.” His eyes widened as he realized how suggestive that could sound. Though he knew that he was merely being childish and immature—like a damn _twelve-year-old_ —and that Castiel didn’t understand the innuendo anyway, he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “I mean—I didn’t mean—um. Never mind. What are you doing here?”

“I thought it was clear I’d return.”

“Right. Right, of course.” Dean’s stomach growled again and he placed his hand over it. “Honestly, man, I’m kinda hungry and I’ve got nothin’ in the house. I think I’m gonna head out and get some food, so maybe now isn’t the best time for your angel therapy, or whatever the fuck you’re calling it.”

“I could go with you,” Castiel offered, his face stoic as ever. “Perhaps you can show me what a cheeseburger is.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, his mouth watering at the mere thought. “A cheeseburger?” His eyebrows knitted together and he tilted his head at the angel. “You mean to tell me you’ve never had one?”

“Of course I haven’t,” he answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve never eaten _anything_ before. Angels don’t need to eat. Some have attempted it. I’ve mostly heard my brothers and sisters talking about cheeseburgers and creamed ice.”

A laugh tumbled from Dean’s lips so suddenly that even he was surprised by the sound. “You mean ice cream?” he asked, his mouth upturned. He simply couldn’t help it—despite his initial hostility, he was beginning to find the angel terribly amusing.

“Yes, I believe so,” Castiel responded with a hesitant nod, the intonation of his voice deep and laced with uncertainty. “I’ve never seen the point in eating when one is not required to.”

“For the taste, obviously,” Dean answered, rolling his eyes. “If you’d tried it, you’d know what I mean. And I’m assuming that if angels don’t need to eat, then you ever get full, which is, like, every human’s dream.”

“Why?”

“How about you come with me to this little diner I like and I’ll show you,” he said; it was more of a statement than a question, and left little room for a decline. “Pinup Paradise Diner. It’s got the best burgers and milkshakes in town. It should be open by now since it’s almost noon. Besides, it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do. And I’m the only person you know, anyway.”

He was surprised he even suggested it, but he got the feeling that Castiel wasn’t planning on leaving him alone either way.

The angel’s eyes bore into his for what felt like forever before his lips turned up at the corners. It was a ghost of a smile, but it was the first one Dean had ever seen from Castiel. It even reached his eyes and they glinted like a pair of sapphires in the sun. “I’d like that, Dean. I can take us there if you want.”

Dean frowned, his jaw set. “How? You mean by—by flying?”

He bit down on his bottom lip, trying not to remember how sick he’d felt the last time he’d been on a plane. The memory came rushing back anyway. When he was fifteen, Dean, Sam and their father, John, had moved across the country. His father had known how afraid he was of heights, so when the time had come to choose a seat on the plane, John had suggested Dean take the window; his hand, however, had been placed firmly on Dean’s shoulder, and his eyes had been gleaming with a renewed malice, as a warning of what would come if Dean disobeyed. So he had plopped down into the window seat without a word, and when the plane took off, John had forced him to turn his head and watch the ground disappearing beneath the clouds. He was a man, John had reminded him every time Dean was afraid. He had to act like it.

“Technically, yes,” Castiel replied, pulling Dean from the unpleasantness of the past, “but not in the way that you think. It will be so fast that you will not even be aware that it has happened. We will simply be here, and then we will be there.”

Dean gritted his teeth. _You’re a man, Dean. Stop being a little bitch and act like it._ He didn’t know if those were his father’s words or his own, but he knew he ought to listen to them either way.

“Dean?” Castiel asked. “Are you all right?”

“What?” said Dean. He cleared his throat and deepened his voice. “Yeah, I’m—I’m good, Cas. It, um…” Swallowing down his reluctance, he forced out, “It sounds simple enough, I’ll be fine. What do you have to do?”

“I only have to touch you.”

Castiel advanced towards Dean, who realized that his guardian angel was still wearing that stupid trench coat and bowler hat. People would definitely be staring, but he could hardly bring himself to care. Not anymore.

Castiel reached out to touch his forehead, but he stopped just a few inches short. “You will need to focus on our destination, Dean.”

“Okay,” Dean whispered.

He closed his eyes and followed the instructions, his heart pounding. When the angel’s fingers met his forehead, he felt an exhilarating, heart-in-your-throat kind of feeling—as if he was free-falling, or on a fast roller coaster, or even skydiving—and then a strong gust of wind. The new and undeniably pleasant sensation mesmerized him. He had always hated any kind of flying; not only in airplanes. He went in expecting to hate it and feel like his insides had been turned inside out, but _this_ —this was different.

He didn’t have the words to describe it.

_This_ made his life force thrum with a vitality he had never experienced before.

When his eyelids fluttered open, the first thing he saw was the angel standing before him, curious gaze turned skyward. The second was the illuminated sign of Pinup Paradise just above their heads. The air was somewhat cool despite there being no clouds for miles. A blanket of blue sky stretched as far as his eyes could see, the sun blaring and making him squint. Dean rarely went to the diner before seven o’clock in the evening, so it was strange to be there when the sun was still out and nowhere near setting.

Dean inhaled the smell of cooked beef and cigarette smoke wafting through the air, eyeing the diner fondly. Through the windows, he saw the familiar pattern of black and white tiles and the jukebox in the corner. “I haven’t been here in awhile,” he ruminated aloud, more to himself than to Castiel.

He faltered when he realized he hadn’t been there since Sammy died.

In fact, there were many things he hadn’t seen since his brother had died. Work. Jessica’s apartment. Moose, that goddamn dog that Sammy loved so much. His mother’s grave. Sammy’s useless collection of encyclopedias that Dean used to tease him for reading. The motorcycle sitting in the garage of his apartment complex. For some reason, this diner.

The thought made guilt bubble up in his stomach, which lurched unpleasantly a moment later.

_Jess._ He should’ve checked up on her weeks ago; but like a coward, he’d smashed his phone, essentially severing all ties with the one person who could understand how he felt. She probably hated him for not being there for her. She probably thought he was selfish for thinking he was the only one grieving.

He _was_ selfish.

Sam would’ve _hated_ him for doing this to Jess.

Dean screwed his eyes shut and reminded himself that he hadn’t had any whiskey today, and that he wasn’t planning on it; so just for today, there was no reason for him to be vomiting up his intestines.

He felt Castiel’s hand heavy on his shoulder and turned to face him. Once again, the concept of personal space had gone over the angel’s head. Castiel squinted at Dean, lips parted slightly, then asked, “Dean, are you all right?”

“You already asked me that,” Dean told him pointedly in an attempt to avoid answering the question a second time. Castiel looked unnervingly concerned. Was this what Cas’s angel therapy was going to be like? Him asking if Dean was okay every freaking twenty seconds? Staring at Dean in pity, his gaze tender?

“But are you?”

Dean sighed, squaring his jaw. “Yeah, ’course I am,” he lied through his teeth, flashing the angel a tight smile. Dean pulled at the skin on his neck distractedly, stubble scratching against his palm. “C’mon, let’s go in. I’m starving.”

With that, he shrugged the hand off his shoulder and strode ahead without waiting for Castiel to catch up, blinking just a bit too fast.


End file.
